Odnośniki
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
raising my head high.
I will try, I said, barely audible. I knew now why he had been preparing
me. My heart seemed frost-burned. I blinked away my tears fiercely, lest they
mar the gilding upon which the forereaders had spent so long. I reminded
myself that if I were a wellwoman, I would have served a different man
nightly, without such qualms. But I was not a wellwoman. I watched him, moving
about the keep, his dark-robed figure stiff and tense, his movements belying
his calm. Perhaps it was an obligation, but surely it was not his pleasure,
this that he proposed. I wondered what would constrain such a man, what would
make him act against his own will.
He whirled about, eyes blazing, leaning back against the gol slab. I could see
his hands whiten as he gripped the table s edge.
Be still, or I will have him put a child upon you, and be freed from your
self-conscious mental babble permanently. I lowered my head miserably, that I
might somehow silence my thoughts.
Get up. I did so, pulling the open side of my wrap together as best I could.
Puil it through your chald. And as I hesitated, he bore down on me. Reaching
out, he raised the wrap and slipped it under the chald I wore, jerking the
material tight. The soft, glimmering wrap was now chaldbelted, turning the
slitted right side from blatant openness into restrained invitation. I smiled
up at him, uncertain. Simple things, I did not know, such as how to wear a
chald to advantage. Khys s intrusive gaze turned gentle as my mind bewailed my
inadequacies.
Page 35
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I do not want to couch another, I said needlessly. It is only your touch my
body seeks.
But you will do as I instruct you, he said. I could only nod.
He spoke then, as we descended the back stairs and crossed the walkway to the
common holding, of what had been achieved in his meetings. He had never before
done so. Most of it was beyond my understanding. I learned that some helsar
chaldric strands had already been bestowed, and that the strand given was of
luricrium, a rare and costly metal which has to it a tinge like storm clouds
forming. I learned that the odds against completing helsar work unscathed were
twenty to one, that prerequisite to such an attempt was the successful
obviation of space. I did not learn what happened if one failed. Nor did he
make clear what might be gained, that such a risk was worth the taking.
I endeavored to think as little as possible, and not at all about the exchange
Khys proposed. But I could not silence my heart s wailing. Generously, the
dharen said nothing, but instead encircled my shoulders with his arm, against
the evening s bite. The wind, gusting, seemed to snigger at me, that I so
venerated this man, who doubtless only used me, as the arrar Sereth had said,
to serve his hests. Whatever they were.
Between ornately trapped sentries we passed, through the brass-inlaid doors
that proclaimed this tower the residence of women. In the entrance hall we
passed small knots of robed and wrapped lake-born, and the smells of flesh and
flower mingled with the acrid tang of narcotic danne and set my head spinning.
Clutching Khys s robed arm, I pressed close against him as we passed into the
common holding, and I saw just how many attended this gathering. Crowds, their
buzz and roar, their close-packed smell, their threatening diversity, were
something with which I had no experience. My eyes searched the strangers,
seeking a familiar face. I saw neither Carth nor any other I knew at the drink
stand, nor before the musicians who rolled out a pulse-matching Dydian
chromatic piece in seven-four time. Near the easterly bank of sheer-draperied
windows, yellow smoke hung heavy in the air, dancing phantasmic as it rose
toward the star-glowed ceiling of greened brass. The round, hollow table was
set with all manner of gracious utensils. Whole carcasses, fruited skins
gleaming, lay upon huge serving trays encircled with pastried tuns, their
crisped outer crusts dusted with salt. The enclosed floor was so thick with
celebrants that it could not be seen. A plethora of forereaders circulated
among the guests, all bare-breasted, their hips diversely wrapped, their soft
flesh shining. Here were representatives of every bloodline, surely, that
thrived upon Silistra. From palest white to starless evening sky did their
coloring range, and those forms were dressed all differently, from bare
nakedness to one dark-skinned, tiny women of whom all that could be seen were
her eyes and a tiny patch of forehead. She was elsewhere swathed in layer upon
layer of green translucence, the edges of which were fringed with little
golden beads that tinkled as she moved. Toward her Khys headed me, to where
she stood with a formidable-appearing man who wore upon him a magnificent cape
of black feathers, like ebvrasea s wings, sprouting from his broad shoulders.
To another he was speaking animatedly, a man near his own build, whose back,
dark-robed, was turned to us, and about whose waist snuggled the arrar s
chald.
The woman saw us first. Her velvet eyes widened. She touched her companion s
arm, and that rana-skinned man turned his own black eyes upon us. His dark
lips drew back, those white teeth, startling, augmenting his fearsome aspect.
I thought he might roar, rather than speak, as he slid gracefully toward us,
the crowd parting for him as if in long-rehearsed formation.
Down upon us he swept, that carnivore s smile flashing, and when he reached
us, his great arms went about me. A hand cupping each of my buttocks, my body
pressed to his leathers with their metal fittings, he lifted me off the ground
and whirled me around. I shook with fear, my head against the tight-curled
hairs of his leather-strapped chest, biting my lips.
Estri, he said in my ear, his lips nibbling down into the hollow of my neck.
Please, put me down, I begged timorously. Laughing the roar I had expected
Page 36
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plblacksoulman.xlx.pl
|
